“Did you get it back?”
“No.”
“Did you get your insurance money for it?”
McGinnis peered at Leaphorn, blinked his watery blue eyes, rubbed his hands across them, put down his glass, and sighed.
“I remember that time, years ago, you came in here trying to find a shaman. Margaret Cigaret, I believe it was—a Listener, as I recall her. And I told you who her clan was, and about a Kinaalda being held for one of the little girls in her clan, and you was smart enough to know Old Woman Cigaret would likely be out where they was holding that ceremonial and we sort of got acquainted.”
Having finished that statement to remind Leaphorn of his good deed, McGinnis nodded, signaling Leaphorn that he could comment on his helpfulness without violating the polite Navajo ban against interrupting.
“I remember,” Leaphorn said. “You also told me you knew my grandfather. You claimed they used to call Hosteen Klee Horse Kicker. It made my mother mad at you when I told her that. She said only a liar would say something like that.”
“Boys shouldn’t tell their mothers such things. Insulting your grandfather,” McGinnis said, choosing to ignore the implication. “Anyway, that day it got to be more like two friends talking. You and me. Not like you was a lawman.” He peered at Leaphorn, quizzically.
Leaphorn nodded.
“You still thinking that way?”
Leaphorn considered that. “When Captain Pinto told me you died, that didn’t seem right to me. I didn’t want to believe it. Too many old friends are dying. I didn’t really think I could learn anything about that diamond out here. I just wanted to see if I could bring back some old memories about when I was really a policeman. Maybe it would help me get into harmony with living with so many of my friends gone.”
McGinnis picked up his glass, made a sort of semi-toasting gesture with it and took a sip, hoisted himself from the rocker, and shuffled off through the doorway into his bedroom.
Leaphorn sipped his coffee. His memory of the chemical taste proved accurate. He put down the cup, grimaced, watched the dust float through the shaft of sunlight slanting through the window, remembering how this place (and his own life) had been when he’d been a young cop working out of Tuba City, learning the trade.
McGinnis emerged, lowered himself into the rocker, put the pouch on his lap, and looked at Leaphorn, expression stern.
“Now it’s time for you to tell me what kind of information you want to get from me.”
“Fair enough,” Leaphorn said. “You may have read about that robbery at Zuni a while back. It was in the papers. On TV. On the radio.”
“Fella killed one of them tourist-trap operators, wasn’t it?” McGinnis said. “One of those places where tourists buy all that Indian junk. Heard it on the radio. Fella got off with some money and a bunch of other stuff.”
“Right,” Leaphorn said. “Well, now they have a suspect in jail at Gallup. A Hopi who tried to pawn a diamond worth maybe twenty thousand and he wanted only twenty dollars in pawn. FBI thinks he must have gotten it in the robbery. But he claims a man gave it to him down in the Grand Canyon years ago. This Hopi’s name is Billy Tuve and he’s a cousin of Cowboy Dashee. You remember Cowboy?”
McGinnis nodded.
“Dashee says Tuve’s not guilty. Captain Pinto saw the reference to the diamond in that insurance stuff added to your burglary. Diamonds aren’t common out here. So I wondered if you knew anything useful.”
“Well, then,” McGinnis said. “That’s interesting. This Tuve, he claims he got it from a man down in the bottom of Grand Canyon, did he?”
He hoisted himself out of the rocker, shuffled down the store’s aisle, and disappeared again through the doorway into the living quarters.
Leaphorn sat thinking his thoughts. How much the man had aged. How McGinnis and his store seemed to be dying together. He resumed his study of the dust particles drifting through a beam of light from the lowering sun.
McGinnis came down the aisle with a small pouch of what seemed to be deer skin hanging from his right hand. He reseated himself in the rocker, looked at Leaphorn.
“I’ll tell you a story. You decide if it helps any. Probably won’t.”
Leaphorn nodded.
“Years ago. Winter, I remember. One of the cold ones. Lots of snow. A fellow came in here, said his name was Reno, probably middle thirties, riding a horse and all bundled up. Wearing a felt hat tied on with a strip of blanket holding the brim down over his ears. He said he needed some food and to use my telephone. My line was down, so I told him he could get to one at that store at Bitter Springs, and if that one wasn’t working, he’d have to get all the way to Page. He got some stuff off the shelf and I heated up a can of pork and beans for him. Then he said he didn’t have any money but he would leave me his horse and saddle for some more food and for me giving him a ride into Page.”
McGinnis chuckled at the memory, located his Coca-Cola glass, poured a trickle of bourbon into it, took a sip, and shook his head.
“It was a little roan mare and pretty used up. Limping on its back leg. Fairly good saddle, though. I put the horse in the barn with some hay, thinking I wasn’t going to make anything out of the deal, but if I didn’t take the horse, I’d probably be stuck with the cowboy, too. I asked him where he was coming from. And now we come to the funny part. He said he been down in the canyon with a bunch of hippies and got lost from that crowd and was trying to find a way out of there. Said he ran into an old Indian while he was trying to climb up a side canyon. The old man told him that slot he was going up was a dead end, and showed him how to get to a trail the horse could manage, and asked him if he had a good knife or a hatchet he’d be willing to part with. So Reno said he showed the fella his knife and said he’d take ten dollars for it. The Indian didn’t have any money but he offered a trade.”
